In the midwestern United States, ethanol produced from corn is mixed with gasoline to meet clean air standards. Allocating land to produce clean fuel means taking away land from farming. We examine a model in which a scarce fossil fuel (e.g., oil) causes pollution but may be substituted by a...

Environmental agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol aim to stabilize the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, which is mainly caused by the burning of nonrenewable resources such as coal. We characterize the solution to the textbook Hotelling model when there is a ceiling on the stock of...

Global warming is primarily caused by carbon produced by the burning of fossil fuels, especially coal. However, nuclear power is carbon free. We develop a dynamic model of the world energy economy that includes fossil fuels and nuclear power. If global warming is to be controlled, nuclear power...

The Kyoto Protocol aims to stabilize the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere, which is mainly caused by the burning of nonrenewable resources such as coal in power generation. We ask how a ceiling on the stock of emissions may a.ect the textbook Hotelling model. We show that when the...

The declared long-term goal of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the stabilization of carbon concentration in the atmosphere. In this paper we impose a carbon target concentration on a partial equilibrium model of the global energy sector. Specifically, we ask whether...

Can nuclear power, which is carbon free, solve the global warming problem? It is a tough sell in the advanced countries, but many new nuclear power plants are under construction in the developing world. We develop an empirical Hotelling model that accounts for the limited stock of uranium,...

The Kyoto Protocol is now a legally binding treaty signed by 141 nations, although not by major polluting nations such as the United States, China and India. Can nuclear power, which is carbon free, save Kyoto and solve the global warming problem? Nuclear energy is a tough sell in the developed...

Environmental agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol aim to stabilize the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, which is mainly caused by the burning of nonrenewable resources such as coal. We characterize the solution to the textbook Hotelling model when there is a ceiling on the stock of...